NEW HOLLAND — It took a little longer than they would have wanted, and it didn’t come against a hated rival, or even a conference foe, but that didn’t take away from the enjoyment.

Saturday afternoon at, of all places, Garden Spot High School, a good 50 miles or so away from home, the Knights of the North Penn High wrestling team finally locked down the 500th victory in the storied program’s history. They did it in their first match of Saturday’s Tom Hecker Duals, drubbing Waynesboro, 44-21.

North Penn had hoped the coveted mark would have come this past Wednesday at Quakertown against the arch-rival Panthers in a key Suburban One League Continental Conference match.

But when the milestone was announced over the gym P.A., there were more than a few smiles coming from the wrestlers clad in Columbia Blue.

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“I’m honored to be on the team that got the 500th,” said middleweight Joey O’Brien. “For me, that makes it so much more special to be here when it happened.

“We’ve been ready for it for a while, but some matches didn’t go our way. But we came through today.”

“Our guys bounced back a bit from the Quakertown match,” said Knights head coach Rob Shettsline, who actually wrestled for the Knights when they reached the 150-victory mark. “It might have taken us a little longer than some programs to get to 500, but the philosophy here has always been to best prepare our wrestlers for the postseason, and we’ve always felt the best way to do that was for them to wrestle the best competition we could. Our goal is for our kids to make their goals.

“So instead of getting wins at team tournaments, we’d rather do the individual tournaments to give our guys tough matches. And that’s cost our program some (dual-meet) wins.”

While the landmark victory was the highlight of the day for the Knights, the duals ended with North Penn finishing 2-3, with the aforementioned win over Waynesboro and another over Red Lion.

North Penn fell to favored Wilson-West Lawn and Downingtown East, then with four regulars out of the lineup dropped the match for fifth place to Perkiomen Valley, 48-31.

Downingtown East landed in the tournament’s championship match against Central Dauphin.

“Our day wasn’t bad,” Shettsline said. “There were some tough teams here, and we had some key guys missing today. But we’ll do a little better when we get healthy.”

One of those wrestlers that’s been bothered by injury is O’Brien, who’s had an iffy back.

“I was injured and tried to come back too early, then was re-injured,” the junior said. “I only wrestled three times today. I just want to be healthy for the postseason, and I think I will be.”

As for the direction of the North Penn program, O’Brien is optimistic.

“Our youth program has really helped the high school,” he said. “I think it’s one of the best around, and that just means better middle school and high school programs.

“Plus, our coaching staff is great.”

While Perkiomen Valley did not reach a milestone at the Duals, the Vikings did finish at 3-2, defeating Pennridge and Avon Grove and losing to Central Dauphin and Garden Spot before their fifth-place win over North Penn.

At the head of the PV class was heavyweight Luke DiElsi, the lone Vikings wrestler to finish the day at 5-0 (PV’s previously unbeaten middleweight Nick Giangiulio dropped a 5-2 decision to Central Dauphin state qualifier Austin Rose).

DiElsi is on the comeback trail after missing most of last season after undergoing surgery for a torn labrum.

“The ups and downs are starting to even out finally,” DiElsi chuckled. “The surgery set me back a lot. I didn’t know if my shoulder was going hold up, but it’s been better than anticipated.”

The injury occurred early last year in a match against Upper Perkiomen.

“I knew there was something wrong with (the shoulder),” DiElsi said, “but I didn’t know to what extent.”

DiElsi shut it down for a week, then attempted to wrestle with a brace.

“I knew I’d have to have surgery, but I was hoping to get through the season like that. But finally I had to call it quits.”

DiElsi tested the shoulder when he played football this fall, but was still leery of it holding up for the wrestling season.

“Football isn’t quite as upper body as wrestling is,” he said.

But so far the heavyweight’s shoulder has passed with flying colors.

And now there are goals to be met.

“I’d like to make it out of districts,” DiElsi said, “and maybe place at regionals.”

As for his team’s 3-2 finish, DiElsi was pleasantly surprised.

“As a team we were awesome,” he said. “I was very happy about that. Personally, I was extremely excited about going 5-0. I thought I’d do pretty well, but not this well.”

“I was pleased with the effort,” echoed PV head coach Tim Walsh, “and as a team, to come up here and win three matches is good for us.

“After our loss at Pottsgrove we challenged the kids, and they definitely came through today.”